Claim
The Conservative party says Jeremy Corbyn’s “plan to hold two referendums will take up the whole of 2020” and, according to Boris Johnson, “the financial cost of this to taxpayers up and down the country will be in excess of £150m” while “grinding the country to a halt” in the process.
Background
Corbyn has pledged to negotiate a new Brexit deal within three months if he becomes prime minister and a referendum on the deal within six months of taking power. The Tories also claim that if Labour takes power in a minority government backed by the Scottish National party, then the price of that support would be another independence referendum.
Reality
Corbyn has ruled out another Scottish independence referendum before 2022. Labour has previously said it would not back an indyref next year but could change its position if the SNP wins the next Scottish parliament election in 2021. Last Friday, on the BBC’s Question Time debate, Corbyn said he did not see a fresh vote as a “priority” and “so in the early years of a Labour government we will not be supporting an independence referendum”. Pressed on what early years meant he replied: “First two years, at least.”
The Tories put the cost of these two referendums in 2020 at £156m. The party claimed a second Brexit referendum next year would cost £138m, while a fresh Scottish vote would cost £18m.
The referendum in 2016 cost £129.1m, according to the Electoral Commission, while the 2014 independence referendum in Scotland cost £15.8m. That’s a total of £145m for both.
Verdict
The Tory claim that Corbyn plans two referendums contradicts Labour’s pledge and Corbyn’s own public statements, although its estimate for the total cost of two votes is justified.
